Thursday, May 15, 2014

As I'm rushing to get costumes and panels completed for the next convention run, I have been running out of TV shows to have on in the background as I work. I like to have some type of noise, generally music, a movie, or TV, because it helps me focus. Not random noise from dogs or the neighbors lawn mower. Those are annoying noises. But one can only burn through so many seasons of South Park and Breaking Bad before you need a change of pace.

For this, I completely blame my brother because he has been watching Rooster Teeth's Let's Play sessions and linking them on Facebook. I watched one for "Things to Do in GTAV." Bowling is so far my favorite and I would be willing to write up a sheet to do the full 10 frames with friends. If I had the time. For such a simple concept, RoosterTeeth does much more post then the typical "Let's Play" videos by providing different viewpoints and eliminating sizable sections of downtime, these videos can be quite addictive to marathon through. So much so that now I have them running continually in the background while I work.

Which is also quite distracting because you can't help but look up and watch the mayhem, laughing with the player through their follies and cheering with their triumphs.

But why "Let's Play"? Anyone can make these videos. More often then not, it's a group of friends messing around-seeing what trouble they can cause in the game world amongst themselves. It's something we all do, but on a public scale. And some people are getting paid to do this. I direct you to Machinima and Twitch as examples.

I think that a major factor in why we like to watch these videos is the simple nature of said gaming. Also the camaraderie of the gamer to the viewer. We can easily picture ourselves with the players, messing about and laughing. And because it's an action that we all have been involved with, that we can all easily relate to with their experiences, we're more likely to enjoy watching them. Again, association! It's why we like 'dem movies with characters we can relate to. (And that is about as 'Southern' as I'll go this week.)

It's not rocket science. We like these videos because they are made to entertain. Whether you sit through a 50 hour stretch of Chrono Trigger on YouTube, or the edited stylings of RoosterTeeth, we can all agree that the camaraderie keeps us coming back.